The people who live in these places are not really more like one another than the people who live in Belgrave Square or South Kensington. But there is no mixture of rich and poor, no startling contrast, no crossing-sweeper and no super-taxpayer, and the first impression is that of uniformity. As a matter of fact, the characteristics of Mrs. Smith of Kennington and the characteristics of Mrs. Brown who lives next door are more easily to be differentiated by a stranger in the street than are the characteristics of Mrs. Smythe of Bayswater from those of Mrs. Browne who occupies the house next to her. Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brown, though they may never be seen by the passer-by, are able to imprint their personality on the street because their ways are open, and meant to be open, to all whom it may concern. Mrs. Smith likes red ochre at her door, in spite of the children’s boots messing it all over the floor. Moreover, she likes to cover the big flagstone in front of the door, and two lesser stones, one on each side; she makes the edges coincide with the cracks, and produces a two-winged effect of deep importance. It is likely that Mrs. Smith’s mother lived in a village where not to do your doorstep thus was a social sin, where perhaps there was but one flagstone, and Mrs. Smith in her childhood was accustomed to square edges. Mrs. Brown “can’t abide that nasty stuff,” and uses good hearthstone, as her mother taught her to do. Mrs. Brown prefers also the semi-circular sweep of the arm which secures the rounded edge and curved effect which satisfy her sense of propriety and usualness. Mrs. Smith has a geranium in a pot in her front window, and the lace curtains which shield her privacy behind it are starched and blued according to some severe precedent ignored by the other ladies of the neighbourhood. Mrs. Brown goes in for a scheme of window decoration which shows the dirt less. She has a row of red and yellow cocoa tins to make a bright effect. The merest outsider calling for the first time on Mrs. Smith knows her beforehand for the decent, cleanly soul she is, and only wonders whether the struggle of life has worn her temper to fiddle-strings or whether some optimistic strain in her nature still allows her to hope on. The same outsider looking at Mrs. Brown’s front door and window would realize her to be one who puts a good face on things, and, if it happened to be the right time of a day which was not washing-day, probably would expect, after the proper ceremonial had been gone through, to be asked in to sit behind the cocoa tins. Who could tell anything half so interesting from the front doors of Mrs. Smythe and Mrs. Browne of Bayswater? Who could tell, on meeting each of these ladies face to face, more than her official age and the probable state of her husband’s purse?